AMD Radeon HD 8850M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Comparison

The GeForce GTX 1650 and the Radeon HD 8850M represent two distinct eras of GPU design, separated by six years of architectural evolution. The data shows the GTX 1650, a desktop Turing-based part, decisively outperforms the older mobile GCN 1.0 chip in the only shared benchmark, with a 297.9% lead in Geekbench OpenCL. Both cards sit at the 40th percentile among all GPUs, and their average benchmark scores are remarkably close—7472 for the NVIDIA part versus 7447 for the AMD part—but this parity is an artifact of limited test data. The HD 8850M has only a single benchmark result, while the GTX 1650 has ten, making the overall averages misleading without deeper inspection.

FAQ

Q: What is the performance difference between the GTX 1650 and HD 8850M in the shared benchmark?

A: In the Geekbench OpenCL test, the GTX 1650 scores 29629, while the HD 8850M scores 7447. This yields a delta of 297.9%, meaning the NVIDIA card is nearly four times faster in this compute workload.

Q: How do the two cards compare in overall average benchmark scores?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7472, while the HD 8850M averages 7447. This places the NVIDIA card just 0.3% ahead, according to the nearestRivals data, though this narrow gap is based on dissimilar test suites.

Q: What are the memory specifications of each card?

A: The GTX 1650 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The HD 8850M has 2 GB of GDDR5 on the same 128-bit bus, but its bandwidth is only 64.00 GB/s.

Q: Which card has a higher transistor density?

A: The GTX 1650, built on a 12 nm process, packs 4,700 million transistors into a 200 mm² die, achieving a density of 23.5M transistors per mm². The HD 8850M uses a 28 nm process with 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, for a density of 12.2M per mm².

Q: What is the DirectX support for each GPU?

A: The GTX 1650 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), while the HD 8850M also supports DirectX 12 but at the 11_1 feature level. Both support OpenGL 4.6, though the Vulkan versions differ (1.4 for NVIDIA, 1.2.170 for AMD).

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the GTX 1650?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 launched with an MSRP of 149 USD. The HD 8850M has no recorded launch MSRP in the data.

Where Each One Wins

The GTX 1650 wins the only direct comparison available. In the Geekbench OpenCL test, it scores 29629 against the HD 8850M's 7447, a 297.9% advantage. This is a compute-oriented test, indicating the NVIDIA card's superior raw throughput for general-purpose GPU workloads. The GTX 1650 also has a much broader benchmark footprint, with results across DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12 tests, plus Passmark G2D, G3D, and compute scores. Its highest individual result is 33042 in Geekbench Vulkan, and its Passmark G3D score is 7880, suggesting strong rasterization performance across legacy and modern APIs.

The HD 8850M has no benchmark wins in the head-to-head data. Its sole result is the Geekbench OpenCL score of 7447, which is lower than every single benchmark score recorded for the GTX 1650 except the Passmark DirectX tests (which score 39, 58, 35, and 124). However, those Passmark DX scores are not directly comparable to the OpenCL results, as they measure different workloads. The HD 8850M's only area of implicit parity is its percentile ranking—40th among all GPUs—which matches the GTX 1650's 40th percentile, but this is a relative measure that does not reflect absolute performance.

Architecture Differences

The GTX 1650 is built on NVIDIA's Turing architecture, specifically the TU117 chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It uses 4,700 million transistors across a 200 mm² die, yielding a density of 23.5 million transistors per square millimeter. The architecture features 896 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. Its compute capabilities include 2.984 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 5.967 TFLOPS of FP16 performance at a 2:1 ratio.

The HD 8850M uses AMD's GCN 1.0 architecture, with the Venus chip, built on a 28 nm process, also at TSMC. It contains 1,500 million transistors on a 123 mm² die, resulting in a density of 12.2 million per square millimeter. The GPU has 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. Its FP32 throughput is 800.0 GFLOPS, and it has no recorded FP16 capability. The GTX 1650's transistor density is nearly double that of the AMD part, reflecting the more advanced manufacturing node.

Clock speeds differ substantially. The GTX 1650 runs at a base clock of 1485 MHz with a boost of 1665 MHz, while the HD 8850M operates at 575 MHz base and 625 MHz boost. The NVIDIA card's memory runs at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective), whereas the AMD card's memory is at 1000 MHz (4 Gbps effective). Despite the identical 128-bit memory bus, the GTX 1650 achieves 128.1 GB/s bandwidth versus 64.00 GB/s for the HD 8850M, exactly double.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ across nearly every specification field. The GTX 1650 has 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, while the HD 8850M has 2 GB. The NVIDIA card's shading unit count is 896 versus 640 for AMD, its TMU count is 56 versus 40, and its ROP count is 32 versus 16. Pixel rate for the GTX 1650 is 53.28 GPixel/s, compared to 10.00 GPixel/s for the HD 8850M. Texture rate is 93.24 GTexel/s versus 25.00 GTexel/s.

The GTX 1650 is a desktop card with a dual-slot form factor, measuring 229 mm in length, 111 mm in height, and 35 mm in width. It has no power connectors and a TDP of 75 W, with a suggested PSU of 250 W. The HD 8850M has no recorded dimensions, TDP, power connector, or slot width data, as it is a mobile part. The GTX 1650 also lists display outputs (1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a), while the HD 8850M has none listed.

Release dates mark a six-year gap: the GTX 1650 launched on 2019-04-22, while the HD 8850M launched on 2013-03-31. The NVIDIA card's predecessor is the GeForce 10 series and its successor is the GeForce 20 series; the AMD card's predecessor is "London" and its successor is "Gem System". The GTX 1650 supports DirectX 12 (12_1), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6, while the HD 8850M supports DirectX 12 (11_1), Vulkan 1.2.170, and OpenGL 4.6.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The single head-to-head comparison is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and it is a decisive victory for the GTX 1650. The NVIDIA card scores 29629, versus 7447 for the HD 8850M, a delta of 297.9%. This means the GTX 1650 delivers roughly three times the compute performance of the older AMD chip in this OpenCL workload. The result aligns with the raw specifications: the GTX 1650's FP32 throughput of 2.984 TFLOPS is 3.73 times the HD 8850M's 800.0 GFLOPS, and its memory bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s is exactly double the AMD part's 64.00 GB/s.

Looking at the broader benchmark suite for the GTX 1650, the data shows consistent strength across different APIs. Its Geekbench Vulkan score is 33042, which is 11.5% higher than its OpenCL score of 29629, indicating solid compute performance across both vendor-agnostic and cross-platform APIs. The Passmark G3D score of 7880 is the highest among the Passmark tests, while the DirectX 9 score of 124 is the highest among the DX tests, suggesting better performance on legacy workloads than on modern ones. The Passmark GPU Compute score of 3048 is notably lower than the Geekbench compute scores, reflecting differences in test methodology.

The HD 8850M's single benchmark result—7447 in Geekbench OpenCL—places it in the same percentile band as the GTX 1650 (both at 40th percentile), but this is a statistical artifact of the limited dataset. The nearestRivals data confirms the performance gap: the GTX 1650's average score of 7472 is 0.3% higher than the HD 8850M's 7447, but this comparison includes the GTX 1650's nine additional benchmark results. When isolating the shared OpenCL test, the performance difference is overwhelming.

The GTX 1650's nearest rivals include the Intel Arc A310, which scores 7550 with a -1% delta, and the Intel UHD Graphics 750 at 7441 with a 0.4% delta. The HD 8850M's nearest rivals are the same GPUs, with the Intel UHD Graphics 750 at 7441 (0.1% delta) and the AMD Radeon R7 350 at 7425 (0.3% delta). This clustering suggests that both cards occupy a similar tier of average performance, but the GTX 1650 achieves this with a far more capable architecture and a wider range of benchmark results, while the HD 8850M's position relies on a single data point.